


Who Caught and Sang the Sun in Flight

by eudaimon



Category: Constantine (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-22
Updated: 2015-12-22
Packaged: 2018-05-08 12:35:04
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,154
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5497250
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eudaimon/pseuds/eudaimon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John never really got the hang of dying; he takes his comfort where he can.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Who Caught and Sang the Sun in Flight

**Author's Note:**

  * For [alchemise](https://archiveofourown.org/users/alchemise/gifts).



> Happy Yuletide! 
> 
> The poem that John mangles is, of course, "Do Not Go Gentle..." by Dylan Thomas.

He dreams about the people that he's lost over the years, enough to fill an ocean. He hears them whispering in corners, catches glimpses of them in the corner of his eye. He tries not to think of them as individuals because the weight of them would be too many. He builds walls in his mind to keep them out, but it doesn't work. He just ends up shoving their names into the cracks like the bloody wailing wall.

Ghosts. An army of ghosts.

He's always preferred to think of himself as more of a lover than a fighter, if he's honest.

With all of the protections, all of the magics and the spells, they are locked in tight. Off the map. Terra Incog-bloody-nita. It wouldn't keep Manny out, not likely, but there probably isn't much else that can get through.

Probably. John Constantine has never been that great at letting go and letting God because believing in something and knowing that something exists? Not necessarily the same thing.

Still. Let them have the illusion of safety. Let them have, at least, the night.

He sits back, beer in hand, and watches her draw. She's drawing him; he can tell from the occasional glance, the smile that tugs at the corner of her mouth as she palms her hair back from her face, twisting the pencil between her fingers. Somewhere both distant and very near, he can hear Chas singing to himself, a snatch of a Joe Strummer ballad.

_Punk is dead, mate_ , John thinks. _We're all they left behind_.

"You're beautiful, pet," he says, bottle paused on the way to his mouth. "You know that?"  
"I've been told," she says, glancing up at him again, smudging a line with the edge of her thumb.  
"Not by me you haven't."  
"You tell me that all the time, Constantine."

Maybe, but tonight, there's lazy heat in his bones, a need to run with nowhere to go. He remembers the last time they were together, naked in each other's sweat. He remembers how good it was. There's a lot about her that makes staying worth it.

Staying's never worked out that well for him, before. He has a way of burning bridges, only realising he's done it when his eyes start stinging. He has a way of tearing things down. He has a way of losing his grip on the people he finds most important.

They're coming back. Creeping in.  
He can't stand it. Not tonight.

He pushes up out of his chair and before he really knows what he's doing, he's holding out his hand to her.

"C'mon, Luv," he says, quietly. "Come with me."

Sometimes, John knows, you have to jump and hope that the fall doesn't kill you. Hope that you can survive the impact. Hope that you're built of sterner stuff and that you won't break every bone in your body, tear yourself limb from limb.

What was it somebody told him, once? He heard it in a dream.  
How sometimes, when you fall, you fly.

*

It's easier to be in the moment with her in the moment beside him. He eases her bra strap down off her shoulder and kisses her bare skin. There are freckles like a constellation; when he was a boy, he used to know all of the names of the stars. 

(As an adult, he knows them too, but only by the names they'd give themselves).

His hands trace upwards, feeling the shape of Zed's ribcage, the swell of her tits. He's been with so many people over the years ( _older than I look, luv_ ) and he likes to think that he's treated most of them kindly but there's something about Zed that makes him turn yearning again, makes him feel boyish, like the clock's gone back and he could, somehow, be better than before.

Behind her, with her body cradled back against him, John bends his head and kisses her neck, her jaw. He brushes his thumbs across her nipples and feels the ebb and flow of her. Magic isn't difficult, not really, not at it's core. All it is is a way with words and you've got to want it, really want it.

More than anything, John Constantine has always known how to want.  
Even if it never amounted to much, in the end. 

Zed turns in his arms, raising her arms over her head to help him peel off her shirt, gets up to peel off her panties and stands in front of him, naked and lovely, like Eve in the Garden. John wants to bury his face between her legs, wants to wrap his arms around her, wants to hear what it sounds like when she moans. He wants to make her feel good, to make them both feel good.

He's always wanted to see what Heaven looks like.

He doesn't say any of that to her, just leans in and presses a kiss against her belly, feels the stubble on his jaw scrape against her tender skin. She shifts so that she's astride him, her body above him and takes hold of him by the wrists, guides her hands up to his breasts.

He doesn't know why she's so important to her father - she hasn't told him, and he hasn't had the heart to ask - but, in that moment, she's important to him, her name added to the end of a relatively short list. Buried balls deep in her, his hands skimming up to squeeze her tits, to pull her down for a kiss, John wishes he could tell her.

_I would die, luv, to keep you from harm_.

Only dying's never been simple, has it? He's never quite figured out the trick of it, try as he might. It's difficult, feeling like a pawn. It's difficult, never feeling like he's really making his own decisions. So what he can do? Same things as he's always done. Love the ones he loves fiercely. Fuck bravely. Rage against the dying of the bloody light.

He's never been much of a poetry fan, if he's honest, but Dylan Thomas had a point, didn't he? 

Zed leans down to kiss him and John tousles both hands into her hair to hold her to it for a breath or two.

"What are we doing here, Constantine?"  
"Holding on, luv," he says, flashing a sweaty, breathless smile. "All we can do, isn't it?" 

John Constantine was never supposed to make old bones. It seems like he might, after all, but he carries so much weight and he's so weary. For a moment, though, as Zed shifts her hips, as he slides into her, all of that falls away. He's young again. There's no such thing as light, no dark, nothing at all but their bodies in this bed, the constellations that spangle the space between them.

How bright their frail deeds might dance, given the bloody chance.


End file.
